"It just does not look good. It's salacious, it's unfortunate and people should be questioning just exactly the extent of that relationship and he should be answering for why he's friends with this type of a man."

"These influential and powerful people should have to answer these types of questions just like anyone else should," Kuvin added.

The Duke of York has denied allegations he had sex with a woman when she was underage, calling the claims "false and without any foundation".

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Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has filed a defamation lawsuit and vowed to seek the disbarment of two lawyers representing a woman who claims she was forced to have sex with him when she was underage.

Prof Dershowitz denies the allegations, which were made in a Florida federal court filing last week, and claims Paul Cassell and Bradley Edwards knew the charges were false when they filed them.

The criminal defence attorney, who is not the target of the initial lawsuit, should not have been named as the "outrageous" allegations "are completely irrelevant to this case," the court papers state.

"To the great detriment of Prof Dershowitz, and as plaintiffs’ counsel surely anticipated, the contemptible allegations against Prof Dershowitz and others have created a media firestorm," it adds.

Prince Andrew, who was also named in the initial lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein, has called the allegations "false and without any foundation".